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Chapter 7
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The Test Was Over. I Was Already Dead Chapter 12
Nina took my ashes to the coast. For the first time, I saw a stretch of open water without a dock fence in the way. She sat on a quiet ledge of rock and told me she’d kept her wedding dress safe. One day, she wanted her daughter to see it.Mom and Dad stood farther up the shore. Matteo stayed beyond them and didn’t come closer. No breeze carried an embrace from me. No seabird brought them a message. They waited until dark and heard nothing but the tide.Afterward, Mom’s voice gradually stopped pulling me back. Sometimes I saw nothing for long stretches. When I opened my eyes again, the trees by the lake had changed their leaves several times.Mom always bought two birthday presents on the same day. She sent one away and put the other in the east wing. Then she sat beside my cutting table, slowly choosing thread for me. When she picked the wrong color, no one corrected her.Dad put the ledger away, but he couldn’t forget its figures. For a long time, he’d stop in the middle of dinner an
The Test Was Over. I Was Already Dead Chapter 11
The family’s guests weren’t invited to my funeral. Dad hadn’t suddenly figured out what I wanted. Nina had given them my hospice intake form, where I’d written down my wishes.[No religious service. No public viewing. If possible, take my ashes out of the city.]There wasn’t much to it. When the social worker asked for someone I trusted, I’d thought for a long time before writing Nina’s name. She’d promised that, if I got well enough to travel, she’d take me to the town where she’d spent her honeymoon. I could see the ocean.I’d still been making plans for next season.Mom folded the form, then opened it again. She wanted me dressed in something formal, but the staff told her I’d already set aside an outfit: the cream sweater I’d altered myself.She sat holding it for an entire afternoon. After that, she stopped mentioning all the new clothes waiting in my old wardrobe.Matteo wanted to leave his watch with me. Nina stopped him and pointed to another line on the form.[Only the brass t
The Test Was Over. I Was Already Dead Chapter 10
Dad canceled every remaining event connected to the dinner. A few days later, he called back everyone who’d attended.I stood in the hall as they arrived. Out of habit, they looked toward the high-backed chair reserved for the head of the family. It was empty. Dad stood below the steps with no drink and no speech in his hand.He told them Viola and I were both his biological daughters. The story about a hospital mix-up had been a lie.Someone quietly asked whether it had been a way of keeping the girls safe.“No,” Dad said. “It wasn’t.”He didn’t leave it at the fact that I’d died of cancer. He told them about the money, the postponed marriage, and what they’d called a test. Mom sat in the front row, holding a printout of her calendar from my nineteenth birthday. She offered no excuses and made no attempt to hide her tears.An old adviser stood up. These were private matters, he said. Dad’s men would question his judgment. His rivals would take advantage.Dad looked at the people who’d
The Test Was Over. I Was Already Dead Chapter 9
When they came to clear out my room, Nina stayed by the door. She wouldn’t let the household staff pack my belongings. Instead, she handed them to Mom herself: two work uniforms, a sweater with a mended cuff, and a canvas bag missing one strap.I’d brought a few sketchbooks when I moved in. As the damp got worse, I’d tied them inside a plastic bag and put them on the highest shelf.Matteo climbed onto a stool to get them. The knot took him a long time to undo. Eventually, he crouched on the floor with the books spread across his knees. The first still had the name of my New York school on its cover.He turned the pages and found my wedding-dress designs. The earliest had a long train. Later, the trains grew shorter, and fabric prices appeared beside the sketches. I’d marked what I could do with every scrap, working out whether there was enough left for a little bag.Mom leaned over and found a note on one page.[Nina. September. Beach wedding. No charge—she saved dinner for me after my
The Test Was Over. I Was Already Dead Chapter 8
Viola had changed into flats by the time she was called into the study. I remembered the shoes she’d worn when she first arrived, the soles coming loose. Mom had knelt to tie them and cried, promising she’d never suffer again.I’d been standing on the stairs, wondering if she’d like half my shoe closet.Dad pushed the reports across the desk. “Luca says you gave him this information.”Viola didn’t sit. Her eyes went from Mom to Matteo. “I didn’t want everyone worrying. Elena wouldn’t see me, so I asked people she worked with—”Matteo laid another page on top. Last month’s report said I was getting regular checkups, maintaining my weight, and planning to apply to school again in the spring. “Which school?” he asked.Viola’s lips parted. “I don’t remember.”“Which doctor?”She said nothing. Mom read the report, then found a picture Viola had sent her four months earlier. I was leaving a bakery with a bag of food, looking perfectly calm. “You said she’d settled in. That she was treating h
The Test Was Over. I Was Already Dead Chapter 7
A few dinner guests had stayed behind at the house. When we returned, Viola was sitting in the living room, her skirt spread across the rug. She sprang up at the sight of the detective behind Dad. “Did you find Elena?”Mom went straight into the study without answering. That night, for the first time, I watched them spread out the details of my life and actually read them.The medical records arrived over the next few days, after the necessary authorizations. I followed them from room to room as my five years became more than a monthly summary.Mom put the pay stubs beside the ledger and worked through them with a calculator. When she finished, she started again. Six day shifts and four nights a week, hauling, scrubbing, cleaning kitchens after everyone else went home. “These shifts run into each other.” She pointed at a line. “When did she sleep?”No one could tell her. Sometimes I slept on the bus after work. Sometimes I curled up in the depot’s changing room, blocking the light with
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